Save the world. Bring your friends.
Every now and then, a film is made because the people who own the licensing have deep pockets and wanted it made.
Inspired by the iconic Mattel toys, Matchbox The Movie is an action-packed, globetrotting adventure about a group of friends since childhood who have their lives upended when undercover CIA agent Sean (John Cena), their long-absent former leader, returns to their small town and unwittingly gets them embroiled in a frantic international pursuit to save the world.
They got John Cena and Jessica Biel to start in this one, and to the filmmaker’s credit, they have woven a tale of an unlikely blend of childhood fantasy and reality to bring the tiny little metal cars we loved as kids into a storyline that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
They all got paychecks. Good for them.
Mattel has only been curators of the Matchbox brand for the most recent 40% of the brand’s lifetime, so Matchbox isn’t even something they made, just something they bought. Matchbox cars were created in England in 1953 by Lesney Products, and served the tiny metal car niche that Mattel didn’t move into until fifteen years later in 1968, when they released their first sixteen Hot Wheels cars. Lesney Products went backrupt in 1982 due to high manufacturing costs, and ownership was transferred to a series of new independent owners before finally being bought out by Mattel Toys in 1997.
When you’re given a task like this, all you can do is play it tongue in cheek, and that’s apparently what they’ve done. The trailer contains a number of such comedic moments, such as where one of the heroes of the story tries a flash move with a shotgun while riding a motorcycle, fumbles the catch and ends up dropping the weapon, only to watch it regrettably recede in the rear view mirror.
Matchbox: The Movie follows in the same grand tradition of nobody-asked-for-this movies such as 2012’s Battleship, and 2014’s Oija, both toy franchises that lacked any central characters, or in fact, any characters at all. Failed attempts to bring such movies to the silver screen include a Ridley Scott thriller based on the game Monopoly, a rom-com based on the Rubik’s Cube, or the time Hollywood tried to turn Play-Doh into a feature film.
Warner Bros. and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production of a live action Hot Wheels movie is still in preproduction hell, and considering J.J. Abrams’ fall from grace with Warner Bros. since 2019, this film will probably never be made.
An Apple Original Film hailing from Skydance Media and Mattel Films, Matchbox The Movie is directed and executive produced by Sam Hargrave and written by David Coggeshall. David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger produce for Skydance, and Robbie Brenner and Ynon Kreiz produce for Mattel Films. Jules Daly also serves as producer. Patrick Newall and Elizabeth Bassin serve as executive producers.
This upcoming film starring John Cena, Jessica Biel, Arturo Castro, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, Danai Gurira, Golshifteh Farahani, Corey Stoll, and Bill Camp. Matchbox The Movie streams on Apple TV on October 9, 2026.
